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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Price of Freedom

He was a restless kid, untamed. He was born that way. From day one of his life on our beautiful earth, he made sure to point out to everyone that he would never stand still, and would always be on the move. He was a lover of freedom, even though he didn’t know just exactly yet what the word meant. Oh, he was so little, such a tiny little thing. He would look at his parents and bothers and sisters, come and go at will, with no restriction whatsoever and feel jealous, bitterly jealous. His mum and pa would talk to him every day, telling him to be patient, that he was too young to enjoy their kind of freedom, but of course he wouldn’t listen. Besides, he was too young to understand, or maybe, he just didn’t want to. Not being able to do what he longed for, he did the second best; he cried. Poor kid; he felt enslaved, iron bound, sentenced to stay at home for a lifetime. Crying didn’t get him anywhere though. His parents knew what was best for him, so they kept talking to him; telling him about the ways of life, about the things one is able to do or accept, and explaining that there is a given time for everything. “All one can do is wait, and at the same time built inside his soul the courage that it takes to brave himself into the world,” they would say, but in vain. “Words. Words. Words!” thought the kid. “I long for action and they give me words.” Bitter sorrow started taking over his entire little being, throwing a dark vale over his parents’ hearts too. Patience is a word he wouldn’t understand. He wanted it all and he wanted it now. He couldn’t wait until he got old. Then it would be too late. So, he kept on crying, feeling that no one really loved him; but of course, that wasn’t true. They did love him, despite all the problems that he created, despite all the pain that he inflicted on them. One fine summer day, he decided that enough was enough; the time for action had finally arrived, the path of freedom was at last open for him to follow. So, after his parents left home, he started to follow their lead to… They found it dead at the doorstep. The feathers of the poor kid were still too weak to hold his weight, so as he came out of the nest, the only thing he managed to do was plunge himself to death. Oh, the beautiful little swallow didn’t know that, the price of freedom is too high, and one has to work really hard to earn it.